PCI Express CPU CoProcessors

[garygerber]

Hi,

I am looking at purchasing an Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessor 3120P Processor Board SC3120P (PCI Express) to speed things up for Mandelbulb 3D renders.

Does anyone know if Mandelbulb 3D will be faster with this coprocessor?

Thanks!

[cKleinhuis]

i have actrually no idea, but what the description reads, mandelbulkb rendering will skyrocket with this set up, if all 57 cores can be used this should certainly be an improvement, but as said, i am not into that topic, but sounds like a nice addition to any pc using heavy processor power (video encoding etc ... )

[hobold]

It depends on how the coprocessor is made available to software.

Later/future generations of Xeon Phi will allow self hosting, i.e. one Xeon Phi chip will be able to drive a PC mainboard, and the system will look like a traditional multicore machine, but with many more cores.

Older and current models of Xeon Phi are not integrated so closely. It might be that those appear to software as another computer in a local network. In that case, an independent OS would run on the Phi, and it might be awkward/difficult to run existing software on the coprocessor. Using coprocessor and main processor together would require software that can distribute computation across a network.

Finally, there could also be a special programming model where Phi and main CPU can communicate by swapping memory buffers (not unlike GPU programs need to copy between video memory and main memory). This would require completely new software.

The devil is in the details. Due to limited availability/affordability, the makers of fractal software probably haven't had the chance to test Xeon Phi.

[garygerber]

Well, I have another software package, Vue Infinite, that will have hugely improved render times according to the vendor. 

I purchased it and will have the machine built next week.

So, I will know soon enough if MB3D is capable of more than 100 threads (something from the intel product page - http://ark.intel.com/products/75798/Intel-Xeon-Phi-Coprocessor-3120P-6GB-1_100-GHz-57-core).  Looking forward